


From Eden

by Jedi_of_Books_and_Snacks



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: Case Work, F/M, Kissing, The Other One, What-If, after a minor character dies, not that character, this is pure wish-fulfillment, wisteria tunnels are a thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-19 17:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19137535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jedi_of_Books_and_Snacks/pseuds/Jedi_of_Books_and_Snacks
Summary: A dead girl in a garden is a straightforward case, Kogami thinks. Even with Tsunemori there.





	From Eden

**Author's Note:**

> Many thank yous to [NuanceGhost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NuanceGhost/pseuds/NuanceGhost) for being a great beta reader.
> 
> This title [song](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/hozier/fromeden.html) rocks.

Babe, there's something tragic about you  
Something so magic about you  
Don't you agree?  
Babe, there's something lonesome about you  
Something so wholesome about you  
Get closer to me  
No tight side, no rolling eyes, no irony  
No 'who cares', no vacant stares, no time for me  
Honey you're familiar like my mirror years ago  
Idealism sits prison, chivalry fell on it's sword  
Innocence died screaming, honey ask me I should know  
I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door  
\--"From Eden" by Hozier

 

 

The call came at 8:27 pm. Kogami had loaded up with Kagari into the wagon and sat, half-listening, while Kagari had rattled on about the challenges of making pulled pork while they drove. Kogami was no cook, but he welcomed the chatter. Better than dwelling on the weeds tangling his mind. 

Crickets greeted them as the wagon opened. They entered a quiet arboretum, gravel crunching beneath their feet in the moonlight night. The stars shone over their heads, eternal witnesses to the crime. Surrounded by draped trees and lush flowers, the sight of the dead woman’s body was startling; as though she had been placed there with intent. Posed beneath a bed of calla lilies, her dark hair was brushed back from her beautiful face. She was wearing a white kimono, as though ready for the funeral pyre. 

“Helpful,” commented Kagari. Kogami snorted while he knelt down and Ginoza gave Kagari a stern look. Tsunemori had smiled thinly and went back to checking over the corpse. 

“Her name was Nakata Cho,” Ginoza said, reading from the comm screen in front of him, “She worked in this garden and had a mostly clear psycho pass, with the one exception being some murkiness that resulted from something unusual happening in her life in the past few months.” He killed the comm screen and pushed up his glasses, as though by habit. “We are contacting her parents to notify them and see if they can shed any light on that. In the meantime, thoughts?”

“Well, there are no stab wounds,” Tsunemori said, sitting back on her heels, “and she wasn’t strangled. I think it might have been poison.”

“I’m feeling jilted lover on this one,” Kogami said. He watched Tsunemori tuck her hair back behind her ears to peer at the woman’s neck. “Or someone who likes to watch the pretty girls die young.”

“Please tell me we’re not opening up another serial killer case.” Kagari’s shoulders slumped. 

“I think you’ll make do,” said Ginoza. The sarcasm dripped from each word. He crossed his arms, addressing Kogami and Tsunemori. “So your theory is that someone poisoned this young woman and then brought her here to lay her out in this garden, correct?”

Tsunemori nodded, while Kogami responded, “Yeah. Look at how nicely she’s laid out. And, like Inspector Tsunemori said, there are no other wounds. The person who did this took care in presenting her. Time to dress her, time to brush her hair. Jilted lover or someone who felt something for her that she didn’t return, I think.”

“I bet calla lilies were her favorite flower.” Tsunemori stood. “How awful.”

Ginoza’s comm rang. Whatever he saw when he checked it made him exhale, as though bearing the weight of the world upon his thin shoulders. If he had to bet, Kogami suspected it was a call from the chief. “I gotta take this. Kagari, see what the forensic scanners turn up about poisons. I’ll be back.”

The dead woman’s eyes stared at the sky, her thoughts, her spirit, now gone. It was a simple case, motives clear to him. Tsunemori’s blue jacket rustled as she changed position. Clear to her, too. He blew out a breath through his nose. With Kagari busy and Tsunemori cataloging the scene, Kogami decided to take a moment and wander somewhere else. Anywhere else.

His feet kicked gravel as he rounded a corner, the lush garden silent around him. An arching tunnel formed from flowering wisteria meandered away along a garden path in front of him, the scent of the blooms encasing him as he entered it. A bench was situated halfway down the tunnel, hidden in the twisting trunks. Sitting down, he stretched out his long legs in front of him and habitually lit a cigarette. The smoke filled his lungs as he breathed in, and then let it out to twine among the purple blooms. A breeze combed through his hair and rustled the twisting branches. 

The wisteria was pretty in the moonlight. She’d smile at seeing this, he knew. No corpse, no death. God knew they had enough of that already. No _who what when where_ and _why_. No reports. Tilting his head back, he blew out a lungful of smoke, watching it twine into the wisteria. Maybe she’d thank him for showing her the flowers. 

Maybe he’d put his arm around her shoulders as they walked, revealing a hard and in-articulated truth.

Maybe if he were a different person, and this were another time.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. 

He sighed and rubbed his face, the weight of his SIByL-issued bracelet heavy on his wrist. The vine above him twisted and turned as he traced it, disappearing into the flowers. There was objectively a lot of shit he could focus on; Makishima primary in that list. 

Who had time for . . . this? 

For the tightness in his chest every time she grinned. For the way she brought him coffee to get him through long hours. That pull she had, kind of like she was a sudden and intrusive gravitational force that broke him away from stewing over Sasayama’s death. 

Pragmatism meant that she was as interested in finding Makishima as he was, but she was so forthright about Yuki’s murder. A mandatory number of days off was standard to grieve. She’d taken them. As for him, he’d thrown away that damned coat. But now that she was back, she seemed clear. Focused. Directed. 

Unlike him. 

Bitterness was a counterpoint as he sucked in another breath of smoke and let it out. 

Pops would laugh at this. Probably have something wise yet salty to say. But to tell him was to admit there was something happening. Once it was out there, there was no coming back from that.

The sound of the gravel shifting told him that someone had come to find him. He could guess who it was.

“This is, technically, a no smoking zone,” Akan-- _Inspector Tsunemori_ said, “which I’m fairly sure you realized, and that you don’t actually care right now.”

The smoke came out of his nose at the same time he laid a finger along it and pointed it at her in affirmation. The corners of her mouth turned up. She walked over to him and sat down, the fruity smell of her shampoo drifting with her. Her skirted thigh was only a hand distant from his own. “Ginoza sent me to find you. The last thing he wants to bother with is the paperwork if one of his Enforcers takes off.”

He snorted. Ginoza trusted them ( _and he trusted them with her_ ) in his weird, specific way. Besides, he knew that the last thing Kogami would do was abandon the hunt, no matter what desire for freedom pulsed in Kogami's heart. 

Anyway, the sparkle in her eyes said that she was kidding, not that he was in the mood for her good nature and shining eyes right now in this damned tunnel. Perpetual kindness, her empathy, irritated him, making him short. “Gino's paperwork is not my problem.”

“I suppose that’s true.” 

Moonlight shaded her face as she looked up at the draping blooms, a motion which he did not track with a glance at her face. Silent, she sat that way for a time. She seemed to be enjoying being there in the moonlight night with the breeze brushing across her face, tugging at her hair. He snuffed the dregs of his cigarette out against the bench, ignoring the way she shifted. They ought to be getting back.

“We had a wisteria tunnel like this near school,” she said, suddenly, “Yuki always wanted to go when the flowers were in bloom. Now that she’s gone, this reminds me that something is always blooming and coming to life, even when something else ends. And when I smell wisteria, I still have the memory of those happy times.” A piece of hair blew across her face. Her manicured fingernails caught the light as her hand came up to push it away. It blew right back.

He stuck his hands in his pockets instead of--yeah. He cleared his throat and said, “I’m glad she exists in that memory. Treasure those moments with your friends.” The irony was thick as he said, “They get rarer as time goes on.”

Three years in and he was talking like an old geezer. Masaoka would crack up if he heard him, Kogami knew. But, as long as he had a Dominator, Akane would never have to give up her freedom. He knew this. But people like Kagari had lived their whole lives in a cage, like an animal in a zoo. Fed and watered and taken out to check into elevated stress levels. 

Like a dog.

“I suppose you would know.” Her upturned mouth held a hint of nostalgia. And sadness. The bracelet shifted as his hand clenched, a shackle to the past filled with his expectations. He wasn’t wrong in that, either. He just needed to keep focused on the case. Not this. “Well,” she said, continuing, “whenever I smell wisteria, I’ll remember sitting here in this garden, too.” 

“And,” he said, suddenly aware he had let her take charge of the conversation, and needing to get it back, “doing the MWPSB work to figure out who killed that young woman and posed her under the lilies?”

Her hmm was slow as she thought through her answer. “I can’t necessarily divorce my police job from taking a moment to enjoy some flowers, though, can I?”

“Can you?” He was being a devil’s advocate, he knew.

The look that she gave him highlighted that fact. “Stop setting verbal traps, Mr. Kogami.”

“You know me too well, Inspector.” His amusement was slight, but it was there.

“You think so?” The way she said that told him that she wasn’t sure about this at all.

“I’m not a mystery.” And he wasn’t. He’d become intimidating, he knew. Since _then_. But then again, she’d paralyzed him when they first met. A match made in someone’s heaven.

She grinned, filling the space between the two of them with a forced levity. “Aren’t you?”

“Now who,” he said, ”is setting traps for whom?”

An amused smile stretched her mouth as she leaned down, her eyes on her hands. Her hair brushed forward over her face, shading her in the dim light. Eyes lingered for too long on the curl of her hair against her neck; he broke the cycle by standing and saying, “We should get back.”

He offered her his hand. She took it, sending a mild shock through his fingers. Flustered but trying to not show it, he pulled upwards at the same time that she made to stand, neither of them sure what the other was going to do until she was falling forward. Instinctively, he grabbed her arms and caught her while her hands clutched at him, holding on to the abdomen and chest of his dress shirt. 

Electricity shot through him at her touch.

This was an accident. Her hands tightened in his shirt. Just a mistake. But. He’d been through enough relationships to know what this could lead to. Akane’s (oh fuck) warm lips were just there, and he knew he was going to have to push her back. Laugh it off, somehow.

“I’m so sorry,“ she said, voice pitched high. One of her hands was right above his pounding heart. “I . . .” but then she glanced up and stopped, flushing at the contact. “I. . . .“ 

“It’s fine.” Had his voice been that raspy this whole time? Before he could stop himself, his hands tightened on her arms as Akane stood, staring into his face. Her eyes were alive in her pale face in the moonlight. She drew in a breath through her nose as the moment went on, her tongue reflexively wetting her lips. 

Oh, _fuck_.

_Let go_ , he thought, _step back_. 

_Don’t do this_.

And then—

A sudden, searing kiss caught his lips.

Instant surprise gave way soon to their mutual need, to both of them wanting this, as her mouth opened to his seeking tongue. Arms encircled his chest and pulled him close, feeling the roundness of her breasts pushed against his chest. Sensuous hips were so close to his own hardening desire. Part of him wished he could take her right here, under the wisteria, and hear her groaning _Shinya_ as she saw stars. 

“Inspector Tsunemori? Ko? Where are you guys?”

Kagari’s voice made her leap away from him as though she were burned, turning her body away as her hands came up to her mouth. She stood still, shoulders tight and back to him. And hey, maybe for her, kissing a hound was at best a protocol breach. At worst. . . . He fumbled for his Spinels, turning away and giving her a moment to compose herself. 

The cigarette caught between his lips as he took out his lighter. His hands were shaking with want, a pulse still pounding in his body. A lick of fire caught at the end of his smoke as he inhaled, deliberately not turning to look at her as he shifted his coat to hide his restricted bulge. Well. Hell and burning damnation existed in part because of temptation, he supposed. He deposited the lighter back in his pocket. 

He blew out the smoke through his nose.

Pride had caused the devil’s fall. And in some stories, Lucifer had fucked Eve. 

He cleared his throat.

“Are you alright?” The compulsion was too strong to not ask, to make sure he hadn’t somehow ruined Yuki and wisteria in her mind. (Who was he kidding? Of course he'd ruined it.)

There was a pause. The weight of what she would say restricted his chest. Then, “I don’t know.”

“Me, either.” He exhaled. Right. And the truth was that he could still feel her in his arms and he could still taste her on his tongue and that he honestly didn’t fucking know.

“We . . . can talk about this later,” she said, voice strained. Then, “We are here, Kagari,” she called in response. “Did you find anything?” 

Kagari stopped at the top of the tunnel, waving them towards him. Feet shifted the gravel as she walked towards him, and Kogami followed, hands in his pockets. She glanced back, once, eyes shining in her pensive face. His eyes met hers, and he thought, _I will fall even further to keep you safe_.

It was all he could do. He blew out his smoke and crushed the cigarette in his fingers, watching her hips, her legs. He let it fall to the earth. 

It would be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Come share your thoughts with me on Tumblr: [jediofbooksandsnacks](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/jediofbooksandsnacks)


End file.
